In June, as the Sterilization concession was coming to an end, VNA raised a simple question: what would happen to the public funds of this service after the 10-year concession ended and administration was returned to the state?
At that time, there was no tender, no winner, and no multi-million euro offer on the table. There was only one fact that needed to be carefully followed: in December 2025, the Integrated Sterilization Services Operator, OSHIS sh.a., was created, a state structure that would administer the service after the end of the concession.
In January 2026, Arisa Cane was appointed head of OSHIS, with a term until 2029. Prior to this appointment, Cane had worked for several years as an embryologist in the In Vitro Fertilization department at the American Hospital.
This fact was neither a violation nor evidence of favoritism in itself. But it was precisely the reason why VNA raised the alarm. Because OSHIS was not just any institution. In its hands would pass the administration of a costly service and the procedures through which millions of euros from the state budget would be distributed.
The question was whether a familiar pattern in healthcare was being repeated: former employees of the American Hospital in key positions in the public system, while companies historically linked to businessman Klodian Allajbeu had benefited from large public contracts in this sector.
At that time, there was still no tender on which a concrete accusation could be raised. There was also no public evidence that Arisa Cane had favored any economic operator. Therefore, the answer was left for later. The tenders that OSHIS would conduct, the operators that would enter the competition, the companies that would be declared winners and the level of competition in these procedures would show.
Three months later, the answer came.
OSHIS conducted a procedure with a limit fund of about 4.5 billion lek, or approximately 49.4 million euros. For this amount, only one bidder appeared in the competition. Diaverum AB was the only one in the procedure and offered about 4.44 billion lek, approximately 97 percent of the limit fund.
Competition, in the real sense of the word, was absent. The state announced a competition, but the competition only had a name.
And this name is not without history in Albanian healthcare.
Diaverum is related to DiaVita, the company that managed the hemodialysis concession for 10 years. DiaVita was originally created by Evita sh.pk, with 85 percent of the shares, and Spitali Amerikan, with 15 percent. Both of these companies were owned by Klodian Allajbeu.
In 2019, the ownership structure changed. Diaverum International AB acquired 100 percent of the company's capital and became its full owner. So, the American Hospital is not a shareholder of DiaVita today, but the history of the company and its concession remains connected to it.
This is where the VNA's warning in June makes sense.
A concession ended. The state said it was taking over the service. A state-owned company was created. A former employee of the American Hospital was placed at its head. Then came the tender of nearly 50 million euros, with only one bidder, and the winner was a group that, through DiaVita, carries the history of another large healthcare concession, where Klodian Allajbeu had been a shareholder.
The Sterilization Concession may have ended on paper. The administration may have formally returned to the state. But when millions of euros are distributed through a procedure where competition is absent and where the same old traces are returned, the question remains the same: what really changed?
In the end, the state took over Sterilization. But, in this case, the state has a name: Klodian Allajbeu.
